Is Time Needed?

Recently, Takuin posted Broken Beyond Repair, a discourse on his moment of realization. When someone awakens, how they experience it varies widely. One may have a bit of flash, some emotional release, or a sense of ‘aha’. But in every case, there is a simple and instant switch from being a person to being Self Itself. The vantage point changes. There is no sense that the person ‘did’ anything. So it can seem nothing happened. Yet ‘who’ has changed completely. Very simple and ordinary, but very profound and illuminating.

For many people, as Adyashanti and others have observed, after the switch there can be a resurgence of the mind or “deliverance”. An attempt by it to step back into ‘control’. Or simply some “ego shrapnel”, habits of mind that need to be dumped. However, we need to be clear that this is not necessary. And if it arises, we choose not to engage. This can take a little practice, but is key to moving quickly past this period.

If someone awakens naturally with no context or teacher, they may take a little more time to see this point. Or if they have been heavily invested in their dramas, they may also struggle a little longer. This is the value of a teacher.

In Takuin’s case, the departure of the individual was quite complete. There was none of the resurgence of the mind. Thus, he finds ideas of a process or clearing – even the idea that some time is required – rather curious. Because of the clarity of his switch, there was none of the muddiness. It’s also worth noting that because of the simplicity of his own approach, there were fewer concepts to toss.

I agree with Takuin that time is not necessary as there are examples of instant and complete switches. A Unity one I’ve seen was, as the teacher described, integration itself. No process of integration required. But many do experience it as a process. If they also understand what has occurred, they will know there is a choice to engage the mind or not.

Once we have stepped past enough of that noise, the clarity will arrive. The deep inner peace will come to overshadow any experience of the day to day world. Soon, the liveliness of the peace will come through and a layer of bliss will be added to the peace.

We also talked about the whole question of doer. Is there anything that is done or even can be done to assist in awakening? It is not the ego that awakens but rather Self to Itself. Some describe what they call grace. A sense that nothing they did had anything to do with waking.

If you look more completely, you see that what was done is also being done by Self, it only appears to have been a person. So the process was not the person doing but the Self doing through the apparent person. Grace is simply the Self acting in ways the person cannot take credit for.

And thus we come to the question of time. Is time needed to awaken? Is there a process at all? One could say that it took thousands of years or no time at all. Both are true depending on how you look. Time exists but not as we tend to think. How it appears is dependent on perspective.

My slow brain is finally getting this aspect of how inclusive it really is. Mind tends to ask is it this or that? What is the right answer? First we start to see that it depends on from where one is looking. Then we realize that what looks is the same in every case. Thus, it is not no time, but that linear time exists fully in the moment. We can run up and down time or step up and see it all at once or collapse it into the current moment alone. Or that it isn’t even there. Just different ways of experiencing it.

Interesting indeed.
Davidya

PS – if you enjoy waking experiences, you may like the links stories here:http://www.wheniawoke.com/
Notice how different each is & how irrelevant any ideas of it are. Also keep in mind that there are stages of awakening and not everyone has the same process through them. Not all descriptions of awakening are describing the same thing. Some (not these) are even mistaken.